Painted White
It
is very difficult
To
find and collect
An
object
That
is
Puritan
New England
This
collecting of object is
Not
of an object that is ABOUT Puritan New England but is...
An
object that IS Puritan New England.
Yes: THAT clears THAT up. Doesn’t it.
“Godly”.
And
then “old”; (early) dates: Sixteen
whatever... and keeping both the Middle Ages’ design influence of “Pilgrim
Style” AND the “was burned” (primitive English settlement structures ‘burned’
“by them”) (“the Indians”)... at the mind’s eye front...:
Then
back to object. And dates...
relative to ‘settlement’ and the... falling away of the primitive English stock
of that ‘early’ (“earlier”) “dirt floor” (object) settlement. Okay so 1760 is “LATE” and 1740 is
“FAIR” and 1720 is five years before English New England settlement was
“cleared” of “Indians” and
1704
was the Deerfield Raid and the resulting
Deerfield
Door to the Deerfield INDIAN HOUSE.
Hatchet marks. The
hole. The peen nail boards. The preserved door frame. The Indian House was torn down in
1848. They saved the door. The Indian House Door is a shrine... to
this day.
“DOOR
you say. OLD DOOR”. Salvaged old door; an Indian door from
an Indian “RAID”. Hatchet chopped
hole... or is it tomahawk chopped door hole? “Belt axe?”. Is
it?
No...
it is not a Puritan door; a ‘godly” door.
Or is it.
It
is a shrine. One may not collect
it. One may, actually, collect
objects about
This
object but I
Never.
No. I always do look at those (the ‘about
objects’)... very closely (scrutinize).
No particular reason for doing that. Just old school fascination. I gather. It is
not a Godly door. It is not a
Puritan door. Or is it? Anyway... it is a shrine. I accept that; it IS my heritage
concisely.
NOT
MANY ‘much of church goers’ in MY family.
That’s that. NOT many ever
‘stood’ as shadows of their sins.
No. Not cold winter
mornings walking there. Standing
there. Kneeling there. Praying there. No... and that (not church going) is
all covered as early New England history anyway. No: They didn’t
go to church. My people did not. And still don’t. Walked by the damn buildings. Damned walking by damn buildings? Of course... but never show it. Just stick it on the shirt cuffs and
walk by. “Deacon”.
Door: Church door. The big ones on the front of the building (church)... have
long been understood to be outstanding design specimens of early New England. Their wood. “Fitted” wood.
Their hardware. Hand forged
wrought iron ‘door’ hardware... preferably of extra effort scale and
craftsmanship. “Prominent
Feature”. “ART”. But hard to collect. Too big to ‘take home’ and “hang” in
‘the collection’. The big hole
upon the building from doing that would leave the front of the old New England
church... wide open... to have ‘em chasing you down the street... right away
Anyway.
And
anyway...
Most
of those doors are not old enough
Anyway
To
be Puritan New England...
Anyway
(“too late”).
So
what is a tomahawk mark of the Puritan church... going church? “Ahhhh....”
“They
tore most of those down”. And
built a better one (church buildings).
By the mid seventeen hundreds the old ‘first churches’ were being ‘torn
down’ to build ‘better ones’ (the ones with the grand front doors). “Meeting House”; yes THAT’S the old
WORDS for it. Understand that the
old ones were the first ones near the first settlements and those ‘first ones’
then were the first ones to build the new ones and
Tear
down the first ones;
The
‘old’ meeting house.
Many
(“some”) survived and are... mostly... “painted white”. That is not the way they were at first
(‘painted white’). I remind...
like... who had any white paint
Anyway?
Was
the white paint a sort of commemorative paint job? That argument could be pushed. I’m not. I know
the difference. The
difference? Early Colonial New
England meeting houses that have NOT been painted white are... ‘very
rare’. And... the INTERIOR of the
early meeting house that has ...NEVER BEEN PAINTED (white) is...
Very
Rare. Don’t trust me. Go look for yourself. White paint... covers up the shadow of
sin that the early New England meeting house... that was the ‘before’ the fine
18th century New England church... was
Torn
down.
Or
preserved; ‘painted white’.
It
is very hard to collect a Puritan New England object that has not been
Painted
white.
I
did... I do. Collect. Puritan New England... that has not
been painted white. Not that I
“keep”; I am a antiques dealers so ‘don’t ... keep’. “It’s for sale”.
And when you do not buy it... then please leave it alone. Puritan New England that has not been
painted white does not need a ‘you’ to... bother with it. Go paint something else white.
What I offer are two old doors. They are very old New England doors that have never been
painted ANYTHING ever. No. They are both old New England first
growth White Pine coastal forest wood... and nothing else excepting the natural
oxidation coloring to the finished wood surface. Only that for two hundred and fifty years (1750) (at
least). Okay... “earlier”;
1740. Anyway... they are old
‘never painted’ ‘doors’.
To.
They
are meeting house pew box doors.
Or: They are old doors to
meeting house pew boxes. Doors...
to a ‘box’ in a meeting house. A meeting
house ‘sold’ (at auction) pew boxes in the meeting house. Each pew box had a door. That opened and closed access to the
pew box. For the owner. When the meeting house was built, the
pew box doors were ‘hung’. When
the meeting house was torn down, the pew box doors were... torn down too. And ‘pitched out’. If the meeting house ‘survived’, it
was, most often, painted white.
The pew boxes and their door ‘were too’ painted white. But going back to the moment of
‘pitched out’... did they; someone... “from the family” “TAKE THE DOOR” to
their pew box... take it home and ‘keep it’. That could have happened... couldn’t it? Yes.
Where...
did they put it? Oh how about
‘upstairs’ in ‘the shed’. “THAT’S
A GOOD PLACE FOR IT!” Then they
leave it there for two hundred years until the day I am up there... in the old
garrets... and spy it and... purloin it... with very little fanfare I assure
you. And it (the old pew box
door)... is never painted
White.
The
Old Indian House Door was never painted white either. “NEAT!”
Puritan
New England early meeting house pew box doors. Never painted.
Original as intended plain New England White Pine Coastal Forest ‘wood’
with a naturally oxidized surface.
Looking for details?
My
eye amplifies the oxidation surface shadow of the once present now removed
‘butterfly’ iron hinges (that ‘hung’ the door) inclusive of their ‘took those
too’ handmade rose head nail holes.
One door had a lock. Now
removed. One ‘locked’ their pew
box? One could and did. KEEP them OUT.
One
door has its top rail.. for the human hand. The other door has lost its. No matter. BOTH
have a single wide pine wood beveled panel “FRAMED” with mortised and
pegged.... thumbnail molded... BELOW the open ‘gate’ that includes, on each,
two lathe turned maple ‘spindle decoration’. Those are an absolute last gasp of old English Pilgrim
Style: An absolute last gasp that
screams the object title: “Pew Box
Door”. “THAT’S HOW YOU KNOW”
One
When
you see it (the spindles in the open ‘gate’).
Denote
that ‘old door’ up in the old garret when your ‘looking around’
For
something that IS Puritan New England
And
not ‘painted white’.
(“Puritans
didn’t paint?”)
